February 17, 2015 — In 2011, Michael sent his very first email to the wp-hackers mailing list. He wasn’t sure if it was the right place to introduce himself, but he had to start somewhere. In the years since, he has gone from being a tentative new contributor to being one of the release leads for WordPress 3.9. In this presentation, Michael talks about his journey through the WordPress project. Michael will focus on some of the problems he encountered as a contributor and how he dealt with them. Michael also look at how, more recently, the project has removed some of those barriers, making it simpler than ever for newcomers to get involved.

November 6, 2014 — In this presentation, I’ll address both the *why* and the *how* of contributing while freelancing. I’ll lay out both an economic and a philosophical argument for why freelancers ought to budget for time on the parent projects. And I’ll talk about some concrete strategies for making the process less painful than it might seem at first glance. I’ll use myself as a case study, and talk about how my yearly earnings have steadily increased at the same time that the proportion of my working week spent on client work has actually gone *down*, to the extent that I spend over 50% of my time on free software work that I’m not paid for directly.

October 31, 2014 — This talk will present a number of arguments for why WordPress professionals ought to volunteer time to the project, arguments that will focus on practical and financial considerations rather than on moral ones. Boone Gorges will argue that the WordPress contributor pool is too concentrated, in a way that has the potential to do disservice to people who specialize in WordPress at the freelance and small-business level. Boone also outlines several concrete strategies for organizing one’s contributions in such a way as to minimize financial sacrifices.